Hi, I love this panel! My question is, when eating at a "family-style" restaurant, can everyone order their own meal, or do we have to decide on because of serving style? I can't find the answer to this anywhere. Please help!”

It depends on where you're eating.

For most of the restaurants where food is served family-style, there is no menu for you to make choices from. The food is just the food. Examples of this include dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern, the Hoop Dee Doo Revue, the Spirit of Aloha Luau, the Garden Grill, and the Princess Storybook breakfast. At the Liberty Tree, your server will bring to the table first a large bowl with tossed salad, from which the entire party serves themselves. Then, the server will bring a platter containing slices of turkey, beef, and pork, along with several side dishes. That is all the food available here. The members of your group can eat as much or as little of the food brought to the table as they wish. The food is also all-you-care-to-eat, which means that if you want more turkey because everyone in your group loves turkey, just ask and it will be brought to you.

You will encounter a different version of this at the Whispering Canyon Cafe in the Wilderness Lodge. There is a full menu here, so members of your group can choose their own meal. However, one of the items on the menu is a family style offering. This is the Whispering Canyon Skillet (I am so hungry writing about this) that features BBQ pork, chicken, ribs, and sausages. If only one person in your group wants this, a single size skillet will be brought to the table (along with everyone else's order). The skillet only will be all-you-care-to-eat. If three people out of five in your group order the skillet, a three-person starter portion will be brought out and those three people can have their fill. The other two in the group can still get whatever they want from the menu. There is a similar option at the restaurant in the Italy pavilion at Epcot.

I hope this makes sense, let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Meet the Panelist: Erin, New York

I have three teenage daughters. We're DVC members obsessed with Disney travel. We've been to Walt Disney World countless times and have visited Disneyland & Disneyland Paris. We've taken several Adventures by Disney and Disney Cruise trips.Learn More About Erin

Didn't find what you were looking for?

To submit your question, please sign in now if you have not already done so.

Ask the Disney Parks Moms Panel

Discover the magic of a Disney Parks family vacation from one of our knowledgeable online Moms.

This is a question and answer forum to help you plan the best possible Disney vacation. Due to a high volume of submissions, we cannot guarantee that all questions will be answered. Also, please keep the number of questions in each submission to a limit of 3.

When submitting a question, please do not provide us with ideas or suggestions. Your completion of this form constitutes your consent to our free and unrestricted use and disclosure of the information you provide to us.

Write Your Question

256 Characters Remaining

Relevant Tags

Add at least two tags relevant to your question from the choices below.

Thanks for submitting your question!

You'll receive an email if your question is answered.

Due to the high volume of submissions, we cannot guarantee that all the questions will be answered. In the meantime, be sure to use the "Search" feature above or browse the site by destination to see if a similar question and answer have already been posted.